Picture this: a room full of over 600 third through sixth graders who are grossly outnumbering the adults in the room. All dressed in various color team apparel with shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs! This is the beginning of one of my favorite weeks of the year, summer camp! Each year we get to take students to Spencer Lake and give them a week of fun and excitement, a week away from parents and older siblings… but, also a week to meet Jesus face to face, uninterrupted.
Last night as I was sitting in our evening service the speaker had this kids in the palm of his hand. He was juggling and doing puppetry and skits and had the kids rolling in laughter. He began to share about the difference between Christianity and Atheism and did a hilarious object lesson about the big bang theory… firecrackers and a coffee can… you had to be there. But at the end of his message, he held up the Bible and began to talk about how many times it has been proven, over and over. How the Word of God is inspired and alive and true. He told this kids how the creator of the universe who made them, had written this book FOR them.
As he was sharing all this information about the Bible, two girls in front of me, probably in 4th grade, reached down and grabbed their Bibles. They picked it up and began to turn the pages one at a time. They were reading the headers and pointing at them to each other. The speaker was saying to look into the Word and to know what it means, and these girls wasted no time. They were pouring over the pages as if for the first time they had realized God had written this to them, FOR them.
There are many “fly on the wall” moments in kids ministry. Many times the kids do not realize that we are watching as they are learning things for the first time. Last night I had the privilege to watch these young ladies look at the word of God with fresh new eyes.
Over the last month we did a series called “Bible-O-Rama” in kids church and the kids have been learning the names, the characters and themes of this wonderful book. They have been asking questions and light up when they begin to put the pieces together of scripture. It is those moments that make my job the most amazing job in the world.
Yet, I have to ask… is the Bible still as fresh, new and wonderful to us as adults as it is to these kids? Do we still pour over each and every page like we can’t get enough of it? Or have we stopped exploring scripture because we have the basics down?
I am completely floored every time I am reading my Bible and something new jumps out at me. I have read the Bible cover to cover, I have studied it for years and taken MULTIPLE classes on scripture yet in my personal time with the Lord He is still revealing new things to me. I pray on a regular basis that God would continue to become infinitely greater to me, that I would see Him in a new way and be in constant awe of Him and His ways.
We need to live in a “can’t get enough” posture towards God. He is not someone to be figured out, He is someone to know, love and let guide us. He longs for us to know Him, He longs for us to walk with Him. When was the last time you read your Bible like these girls at camp? When was the last time you thought “I can’t get enough of scripture”? If its been awhile, that’s ok, its never too late to start. Pick up your Bible, pray over it and say “Lord, reveal yourself to me,” them open it up and read. King David said it best in Psalms 19:17-20:
“Be good to your servant, that I may live and obey your word. Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. I am only a foreigner in the land. Don’t hide your commands from me! I am always overwhelmed with a desire for your regulations.”
Lord, open our eyes. Overwhelm us with a desire for your Word.